Daily NCAA Compliance Tips from Jen Condaras

Daily Compliance Item- 12.11.14- 13.02.5.5.2- Contact During a Dead Period PART 2

The Ocean State University football team will be traveling to their bowl site later this month. While in the area, the coaches would like to go visit the recruits that will be enrolling in school in January. It will be a dead period but these recruits have all signed their written offers of admission and financial aid.

Is it permissible for the coaches to go the recruits’ houses to say hi and happy holidays?

While it is okay for all other sports, it is not permissible for FBS institutions to have contact with prospects during the December or January dead periods. This is true regardless of whether the prospects have signed their written offer of admission or financial aid or provided a financial deposit to the institution. NCAA Staff Interpretation- 12/12/13- In-Person Contact with Prospective Student-Athlete During Football Bowl Subdivision December or January Dead Period After Commitment (I)- states that, in bowl subdivision football, it is not permissible for an institution to make an in-person, on- or off-campus contact with a prospective student-athlete during the December or January dead period, even after the prospective student-athlete has signed the institution’s written offer of admission and/or financial aid or the institution has received the prospective student-athlete’s financial deposit in response to its offer of admission. However, it is permissible for the institution to make such contact with a prospective student-athlete who has arrived in the locale of the institution for initial full-time enrollment.[References: NCAA Bylaws 13.02.4 (contact), 13.02.5.5 (dead period), 13.02.5.5.2 (exception — after commitment), 13.02.12 (prospective student-athlete), 13.02.12.1 (exception — after commitment), 13.1.5.2 (football) and 13.17.4.1 (Bowl Subdivision Football)]